Moore's law states that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. To achieve Moore's law, the integrated chip industry has continually decreased the size of (i.e., scaled) integrated chip components. However, in recent years, scaling has become more difficult, as the physical limits of materials used in integrated chip fabrication are being approached. Thus, as an alternative to traditional scaling the semiconductor industry begun to use alternative technologies (e.g., FinFETs) to continue to meet Moore's law.
One alternative to traditional silicon planar field effect transistors (FETs), which has recently emerged, is nanowire transistor devices. Nanowire transistor devices use one or more nanowires as a channel region extending between a source region and a drain region. The nanowires typically have diameters that are on the order of ten nanometers or less, thereby allowing for the formation of a transistor device that is much smaller than that achievable using conventional silicon technology.